JIŘÍ KOTAČA & ALF CARLSSON QUARTET / CZE, SWE, SVK

Jiří Kotača is an award-winning trumpet player and composer. He comes from the Slovácko region in southeastern Moravia and, like his brother, he got to the wind instrument through the traditional brass band, in which their father also plays the clarinet. He is the bandleader of the big band Cotatcha Orchestra, was nominated for the Anděl Award and was the winner of the Czech Jazz Harvest 2020.
 
Alf Carlsson is one of the most sought-after and most versatile Swedish musicians. He graduated from the prestigious Royal College of Music in Stockholm. In 2013, he won the prestigious Albin Hagström Scholarship Award for promising young guitarists in popular music. A year later, he composed music for the Nobel Museum in Stockholm on the occasion of the award ceremony for Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai. He has performed dozens of rock, pop and especially jazz concerts. He currently collaborates with the Swedish-French quartet Les Enchantes, Jazzcats, Jessica Curran and Julia Jonas.
 
Project ALF CARLSSON & JIŘÍ KOTAČA QUARTET
The international quartet consisting of Czech trumpet player Jiří Kotača, Swedish guitarist Alf Carlsson and the Slovak rhythm section, double bassist Peter Korman and drummer Kristián Kuruc, mixes the influences of lyrical Scandinavian music and modern jazz with a pinch of Moravian and Slovak folklore, in a variety of strong melodies and connecting different musical traditions and roots.
 
Kotaču and Carlsson both studied in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The Alf Carlsson / Jiří Kotača Quartet, complemented by excellent Slovak jazzmen Peter Korman and Kristián Kuruc, has performed dozens of concerts at jazz festivals and clubs in Sweden, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
Three years after the release of their debut album Journeys, the quartet came up with a new song, Focused Voice, which foreshadows not only the expansion of their sound palette, but also work on a new album. The band has embarked on live electronics in the form of effect pedals and pads.
 "This drew us to electronic music, and therefore effects, which enable greater work with sound and its bending. For a long time, one of the building blocks of our music has been working with a wide range of sounds, and electronics have helped us to expand that even further, ”says Kotača.
 
 
Jiří Kotača (trumpet)
Alf Carlsson (guitar)
Peter Korman (double bass)
Kristián Kuruc (drums)